Saturday evening finds him at pacing outside her apartment door. He arrived a little earlier than their agreed upon time of six pm. He stood at the door holding a very small bouquet of roses in his right hand and a potted white lily in his left. He hoped that his daughter would enjoy the lily but at three years old he didn't truly know. He listened at the door for any sounds that might give any indication that something was wrong inside, but all he heard was Kate and Lily talking about his upcoming visit tonight. He was amazed by his daughter. For being only three years old his daughter was very articulated in her speech. He then remembered the school on the street level down below and wondered if Lily attended it. He wanted so badly for this to work out tonight because if it didn't he had no clue what direction to take then. He stares at his watch again and says screw it to himself. He juggles the potted lily as he knocks on the door a full seventeen minutes too early.

Xx

She was trying to get Lily to agree to wear something other than a skirt. Lately, she been on a kick to wear a T-shirt and a skirt all the time and the T-shirt had to have a female superhero on it. Kate wanted to put her in a nice dress and that was what their discussion was about when she heard the knock at the door.

God, he's here too early she thought. I'm not ready, Lily's not dressed yet, why is he so early?

She got up off the chair at the breakfast bar and walked over to the front door and looked through the peephole to make sure it was him. It was and he was holding flowers of all things. She unchained the door and opens it up not realizing that Lily had come up behind her and was holding onto her leg tightly. All of a sudden Kate became very nervous not knowing what to think about why he was here so early or what he wanted to talk about. So, she invited him in.

"Come in Rick have a seat," Kate said.

Instead of entering the apartment Rick knelt down and gave Lily a smile. She let go of Kate's leg and stood in front of him. He held out a lily and gave it to her hoping she would like it.

"What do you say, baby?"

"Thank you for the pretty flower!"

"Your very welcome Lily," Rick said as he watched her run towards the kitchen carefully carrying the flower.

Rick's watched as Lily ran back into the kitchen to put her lily on the counter. He produced the roses from behind his back and gave them to Kate.

"Rick's you didn't have to get me flowers. It's not like I deserve him after the way I've been treating you."

"Kate, a beautiful woman always deserves beautiful flowers."

"Well thank you for thinking of me. Why don't you come inside and have a seat while us girls finish getting ready?"

Rick entered the apartment and Kate shut the door behind him. She found a vase to put her flowers in and placed them next to her daughter's lily. Then she took Lily back to her bedroom to get her changed into a dress. She was happy when her daughter did not question or fight her for wearing a dress and gave her no problems. When Lily was dressed Kate asked her to go out and talk with Rick in the living room. She never said had the chance to say anything else before she took off running to see him.

Kate then went into her own bedroom and knowing that she had a dress similar to Lily's she decided to be a little bit silly pull it out of her closet to see if it still fit. She slipped into the dress and it still fit. It hugged her body better than when she had first bought it. She looked herself over and liked what she saw looking back at her in the reflection of the mirror. Her dress was not an exact match to her daughters but it was close. She just hoped Rick liked it as well.

When she walked out into the living room she sees Rick and Lily talking mostly with their hands. She's never seen this before from her daughter maybe it's a trait that Rick used to have when he was a child.

Xx

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught her as she walked into the living room. His eyes were automatically drawn to hers. She was simply beautiful in the dress that she was wearing. Thinking that she might be upset with what he was doing with Lily he said,

"I'm sorry Kate we just started talking and it was fun. For being only three she is very smart."

"It's fine Rick. She is smart I think he takes after the both of us. But I would really like to talk to you after we get her down for the night. Seeing that it's only six-fifteen I can throw together something really quick and we can have her in bed by eight."

"Okay, Kate do you need any help with the prep."

"I could use some help with the salad and the garlic bread. Do you think you can handle it?"

"Leave it to me. I'll make a salad that will knock your socks off."

Rick realized too late that Kate wasn't wearing socks but stood in front of him barefooted. When he looked back up at her he could see that she was giggling a little to herself.

"Not wearing socks Rick." She said.

Soon they working side by side in Kate's kitchen creating something that they will both like. Once Rick is done with the salad he sticks it back in the fridge. Then he gets to work on the garlic bread. Kate had prepared her sauce and angel hair pasta because it was Lily's favorite. They all sat down for dinner by seven. When they were finished Rick read Lily a story about Rapunzel. Kate could see that she was dropping off and knew it would only be a matter of time when she would be fully asleep sitting next to him.

With Lily asleep, Kate wondered what was going to happen next. There were a whole lot of things they need to talk about and she hoped a majority of it will be settled tonight. She walked back into the living room and noticed he never left the spot he was in. Gathering up the courage she started.

"Rick, I need to apologize for the way I've been acting since you came back. At first, I didn't really believe that you were standing in my doorway and my thoughts were all over the place."

"Kate, I don't understand so you need to explain this to me. I've been missing for three years and this is the welcome I get? And on top of that, to find out that I have a daughter the way I did? It just doesn't seem like you care that much anymore about where we are going as a couple. If need be we can set up an arrangement for visitation for Lily and go our separate ways. But I will never, and I mean never give up my rights to my daughter. She is my daughter I will provide for her and I am and will always be her father."

"Rick, I'd never keep you from seeing your daughter. But I do have concerns about when we should tell her that you are her daddy."

"Kate there should be no concerns about when we tell her. She is my daughter. She's young enough to not really remember that I wasn't there for the first few years of her life. She will adapt quickly of that I can guarantee you. Children are resilient that way. So, I don't think that holding off from telling her is the right way to go about this. Please don't fight me in this because her well being is at stake here."

"That's what I'm talking about Rick. Don't you think that it's going to be a shock to her system to find out that all of a sudden, she has you a father? Don't you think she'll question where you have been for the past three years and now all of a sudden, you're here out of the blue."

"Kate isn't it better to tell her the truth now then keep it from her when it will hurt her more later? Look, this is the best way to go about this."

"Are you sure that this is the only way to tell her?"

"Kate what are you worried about? I'm her father, end of discussion."

Kate felt her throat close up and tears start to form in her eyes but she needs to tell him how she felt.

"For three years it's been just us Rick. What I had to give up to be able to be the one to make sure that she had whatever she needed to be happy…"

"Hold on here a second Kate. Do you think that I am going to come in here and upset what you two have together? Take it away? If you think that I could be that unfeeling, then I have less respect for you then you could imagine."

"I just don't want to lose what we have together."

"Kate, there's no way I would ever let that happen. And I know that with a little time, we can become the family that I know we were supposed to be. We just did things a little out of sequence."

A/N: Guest responses here

Guest Dreanwriter08: Alexis got what she deserved. As for Kate maybe she was thinking about the time that she was gone from Rick's life those three months... Hmmm.

Guest SharonS: Thank you for your review! It means a lot.

Guest #1: Thank you for the support! Here is your next chapter.

Guest #2: Alexis is basically done in this story, well maybe there might be one more surprise waiting. A pole dancer sounds like it might be fun!?

Guest #3: My hat is off to you. Being a single parent is a hard job one that I respect. For a short time, my mom was one.

Guest #4: Thank-You!

Guest Dave: No review could be harsh or mean-spirited write what you feel like writing to get your point across. It has become hard to write about these two great characters and come up with plausible storylines. Writing these two as OOC is making the job of writing them a little easier. If you think they are OOC now wait until I post the next story after this one! Castle came home to find that he had 800,000 left in his everyday account. Alexis had used about 21 million from this account in about three years. She also never touched her own account which had about 650,000 in it. Martha's was not available to her. Just to be fair, 50 million is a bit high for the loft and the house in the Hamptons but we'll go with it. Yes, these assets were of the liquid in nature. So imagine your investment guy didn't do that much to manage your accounts or made bad investments that on top of annual taxes owed his fortune could quickly be erased even without his daughter spending it. Add her into the mix and well you saw what he had left.

At the time Alexis was an adult and in charge of his assets. Martha realized this too late and took over right before they found him. So since she was in charge of the accounts a simple money transfer is all it took to get the boat for Joseph. She never had to step foot into the bank. See how easy it is to move money around? I really loved your review and responding to it made me think about the way I could have explained parts of this story better. Thank you.